Installing XP

[Jleagle]

Im buying a new mobo soon and ive read that i will need to reformat after.

Im stuck on how i can install XP though, i bought my PC from HP, it came with no CDs. Instead, it had a recovery partition which had the windows files on.

That was years ago and ive reformatted since losing the partition, i had to pay a shop £40 to install XP on it for me that time, but now im looking for a free alternative.

I have a valid licence key from HP and im guessing i have another licence key from the shop which installed my current Windows XP Home.

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Will i just be able to borrow a friends XP Home CD and install it using my own details?

Thanks.

[Coops]

I would take it that the shop used your orginal key to reinstall your system with and have not given you a new key unless you bought one. If you bought one then they should have provided you with a CD.

With regards to the HP Licence this will be OEM and has no transfer rights to a new machine. ie. It can only be used on that machine. Replacing the mainboard as is classed as a new system unless it is repair carried out by HP under warranty and as such Microsoft may refuse activation of the licence key you have.

You will need to acquire Microsoft XP Install CD in order to install.

[Nox]

£40 sounds more like an installation charge than a purchase of license + installation - the shop may of had an XP home OEM edition that would of worked with the hp key. As Coops said tho, oem licenses are not generally transferable when you read the small print, unless you are looking at a like for like hardware replacement on a failed machine.

However, I have heard some OEM Vista users have had no problems transfering it to another machine and Microsoft were allowing 1 swap.

Nox

[Kremmen]

I would try and purchase a OEM XP CD and do the installation properly from scratch where it identifies the hardware correctly. Quite often shop installed OS's, from master tape, fail subsequent M$ validation checks.

[Nox]

or vista home OEM may work out cheaper...

RRP on it is cheaper I think.

Nox

[Jleagle]

Whats the difference between a 32-bit and a 64-bit OS?

What exactly is an OEM OS? I thought i knew but not so sure anymore...